2019 Oyster Tours: Oyster Tour #2

Oyster Tour #2

This is not the normal Florida ride to find Oysters. This is a long ride prepostioning Fred for the Spring Ride, coming in another link. It is being done to attended two family reunions. The first in Apex, North Carolina with five Wilson brothers. Steamed oysters are being served, thus qualifying it as a Oyster Tour. The second is the Plummer family reunion. This is three or four generations, descendants of what where originally share croppers, meeting at a house that is related to the family but now a museum piece in the town of Raeford, NC. This is a mixed bag of society, both politically and culturally. Hopefully, no one will be killed at this one.

DAY 1 March 12

Today started like the first day of the last ride. A great morning yoga lesson with Wendy. I can never figure out why she's not laughing all the time watching an old fat guy who is trying to get in into a pretzel position. She is very kind and patient with me and I am very appreciative. I had lunch with Dave so he could give me a key to Camp David. Camp David is our new overnight point in Newberry. Physically it is on the same property as Larry's Alabama Dream Home, but since Larry is living in the dream home most of the time now, I have moved over to David's 5th wheel trailer which is only used occasionally.

I kissed the wife goodbye about 12:15 and headed down the same road crossing over the Tampa Bay and heading up the Veterans Highway north to the first decent exit to get off and ride some back roads. Last blog I told you I was going to show some pictures of the churches that I stopped in to see but did not show them as the camera was filled with water and a lot of the pictures did not come out of the digital roll. But, I got them today. The Polish Church from the 1916 Polish community that moved to the area. And the Hindu temple located outside of Inverness. It's a very interesting group of shrines around the main temple. One shrine was behind glass with a door with music playing continually, No one was on the property and I am surprised no one has defaced any of it.

I rolled into Camp David about 5 and unloaded and had a nice quiet back road ride to Publix. I was to cheap to spend the $7 they wanted for a salad, which is kind of stupid since the new expression nowadays is "I didn't come on vacation to save money". (Available on tshirts soon on Amazon). So I picked up a cheaper sandwich and a bottle of wine and headed home. I spent the evening enjoying the nice quiet area of Camp David and looking at the stars.

I also watched transplanting watermelons earlier on the property across the road from Larry's . I had seen and transplanted tobacco in my youth, but I had never seen them transplanting watermelons. I talked to the gringo on the job and he says the plants come from some small town in Georgia and then they are planted by people setting on the transplanter behind the tractor. They feed the plants into the machine that sticks them in the ground with a little water at the same time and others walk behind fixing ones that were not planted correctly or adding one where spots were missed.

DAY 2 MARCH 13

I have some strange sleep phenomena. At home I am up by five a.m.. On the road, for some reason I can sleep in, till as late as 6:30. Today I was up a 6:30, arranged Camp David, took out my trash and hit the road as the world was just lighting up. It is a bit chilly this morning but the skies are blue.I just told Mr. Garmin to take me to MacCennly Florida and the Sleepy Time Restaurant. Usually Mr. Garmin plans the worst rides but today he did all right. Took me on small roads I have not been on before and though it was rush hour for country people going to Gainesville for work, my roads were not crowed. Of course I was going North and Gainesville is East. As most rural roads, I passed a few prisons and just outside MacCennly I passed the Florida Mental Hospital. Seems as though they wanted to place it as far away from the population as possible, thus hiding any mention of mental illness.

Bill rolled into the parking lot about five minutes after I arrived. The Sleepy Time Restaurant is only open from 8:30 to 2 a couple of days a week, so we are lucky we picked the right day. The cashier, normally the cook, informed us to be patient as there was an employee missing today and the person cooking was a trainee. Fortunately, after the fireman, who rolled in on their truck gave their order things slowed down and the real cook was able to get back to doing her job. This is one of those places and areas were quantity not quality are the prime issue for food. Fortunately the Sleepy Time had both.

Plumped up and ready to ride, Bill went back to work in Jacksonville and I continued on my trac north. These long straight roads through pine forest are starting to lose their allure with me. Though I have ridden this road many a time, I saw something new on this ride. It has obviously been there awhile as it is the biggest land fill I have ever seen. The caterpillars on top of the pile looked like little toys the garbage was stacked so high.

The main event today was to be Lester's BBQ outside the town of Estill. It has been there forever and the late Anthony Bourdain declared it the best in the USA. Unfortunately, I left a day earlier than my original plan and I decided, even though it was a Tuesday, to check to see if Lester's was open. It was not. Days are Wednesday to Saturday. Damn.

OK, plan B. Head on over to Beaufort SC and see what happens. I stopped along the way and on my phone booked a room via AirBnB. Though I have used AirBnB before I have never used the option of just booking a room in someone’s house. This task accomplished I continued on. Riding thorough the marshes and up US 17 I wandered. I decided, instead of BBQ, I would hunt for some Frogmore Stew or low country boil. I decided to look for this out on Pawleys Island, across the river from Beaufort. This area used to be a sleepy little town but no more. Traffic through town was heavy and even on Pawleys Island, once almost deserted, had heavy traffic. I could not find the little place I had eaten years ago so I settled on the Foolish Frog. They had a low country boil, just by a different name. My server was ISIS, named after the Greek Godess. However, due to political times, she now go’s by SiSi. A very lovely young lady that allowed me to take her picture. However, when I later went looking for her picture, it was nowhere to be found. I had left my camera on the table when I went to the bathroom and she obviously took that opportunity to erase the picture.

About five o’clock I headed for my room for the night. I nice little 50’s style home I was met by Bob and his dog Baker. The house has two original bedrooms on the right and a suite on the left as you enter. I was the only guest and Bob retreated to the suite and left me with the whole house to roam. He had everything you would need. A large assortment of teas, coffees, and fruits laid out in military precision on the counter. On the other counter was crackers and cereals. In the frig was milk, cheese, muffins and other items neatly arranged.

I watched the sun go down over the marsh across the street and called it an early evening.

Bill in the parkingl lot

The dump

Time for a coffee break

The Frogmore Pot

Front yard view of AirBnB

Here is what we missed...................................

DAY 3 MARCH 14

I was out early headed for Wilmington, NC to visit my life long friend Bob Kiel and his wife Jeannie. The traffic was moderate with people headed to work. I really wanted to stop and take some pictures of the Marine Corp Air Station but the only place to safely pull off was in a cemetery and the ground was soft so I could not park the scooter. There was a layer of ground fog about three feet thick laying just over the open ground of the airfield with the sun rising in the back ground. I snapped some pictures riding through the marshes. There were some nice back roads but some of them where the trashist I had seen in a long time. It least one community realized it and was trying to do something about it. I was soon on the four lane part of US 17 headed to Myrtle Beach. Another less than enjoyable ride through the redneck Disney world of Myrtle Beach. This is another place I do not need to ride through again. I just kept thinking how miserable this would have been if it had been a hot day and you have to stop at every stop light.

Once crossing into North Carolina there was a instant change. The road turned remarkably better and all the tacky stuff disappeared. The hardest part of this leg was finding my way into Bob’s subdivision. Mr. Garmin was not real sure where to turn and they had some of those funny things were you cannot turn left at the light you have to go up to U-turn lane. Once into the subdivision it is a wandering road system. I finally knew I was there when I saw a driveway with reserved parking for Vespa’s. We spent several hours catching up on old times and Bob still blaming the “the gosh darn Yankee’s” for everything from hurricanes to hang nails. We miss Bob and Jeannie coming and staying in our house while we are away, because he fixes everything. That is part of his problem now. Nothing to fix.

It was almost five when we said our goodbyes and I tried to figure out how to escape the den of Yankees. I was successful and the rest of the ride, about an hour, to the Cape Fear Winery where I would be spending the night was uneventful.

This is an all new operation. They have built little two room bungalows that are very nice and comfortable. There is no checking in. That is all done on the phone or the internet. Your key code to get into your room is the last four digits of the phone number you used to call or gave on the internet. You get an email with all the instructions.

They have a restaurant so I walked over for dinner. The bartender took three tries to make my martini. I told him vodka, fresh lemon juice and sugar on the rim. The first one came with the sugar and lemon in the glass, the second one came with the sugar in the glass and the lemons on the rim, and third one was just right. Dinner was excellent. The best crab soup I can remember and the pork chops and greens where very good. On the phone they said come early as they had a guitar player that was fantastic in the restaurant that night and it would be crowded. Neither was true.

There were several miles like this

Bob does not want his picture on the internet because those Yankees may see him

Restaurant at Cape Fear Winery

Best Crap soup I have ever had

The rooms

DAY 4 March 15

Rain is promised for today so I am up and on the road right before the crack of dawn. I had about one hour and a half to reach Angies restaurant in Garner, NC to meet up with Scott. We have been to Angie's many a time in these blogs and she and her restaurant are still great.

I was suited up for rain but it never came....thankfully. And, the rain gear kept me warm in the 50 degree weather. Great ride through rural North Carolina watching the sun slowly bring the world light.

Angie's surprisingly offered me a table even though Scott was not there yet. This little place has to have a maitre d' because it so popular. We both ordered eggs and country ham. In the old days I would order this and take over half of it home to share with my parents. Since they are no longer with us I ate all. Scott and I, later in the day, swore that in the future if we have country ham we will order one and share.

From and Angie's we headed to Hogan Farm. Arrived without a drop of rain. However, later the rain came in buckets.

Just look at that slab of ham!!!! All this for $7.50

Angie still loves me!!!!

The garage on Hogan Farm

Lots of flowering plants about a 2 to 3 weeks early.

The Reunions:

There are five boys in my family and we had not gotten together in quite awhile. So, since we are attending a massive family reunion this weekend, Charlie said we should get together on Friday and Scott volunteered his house as the meeting place. It was a great time. Dennis, from Georgia, was unable to make it but everyone else was there with wife or girlfriend. We had roasted oysters, shrimp and some great side dishes. We ate and drank lightly and hung out in Scott's massive garage for hours. Told old stories and new ones and watched it rain. A great time was had by all and I mean that.

The Official Oyster Tour Picture

Four of the five Wilson boys

My mother’s parents were farmers from Puppy Creek, NC and has had reunions for as long as I can remember. I have not attended one in several years. The timing had always been wrong. It was usually in the summer and people had lots of things to do and there was light attendance. Since they moved the reunion to March and I voted for that, I felt that it was my responsibility to show up. It was held in Raeford at their museum in a house that belonged to a relative. He had given it to the museum and paid to have it moved to the museum property. The food was catered by a local lady that told the organizer, cousin and preacher Johnny, “I know what you want. Food like your mamma cooked.” And she was right. There were around 45 attendees, many who had not seen each other in years. I believe there were four generations of Plummers in attendance.

My BFF and former yoga guru had moved to Swannanoa, NC and been after me to come see them. Since I was on a reunion run I said yes. I left Fred in Scott’s garage, where I will come back and retrieve it in the spring, got a rental car and drove to Swannona. Others had told us how steep and narrow the drive is the house and they were not lying. Those people had to drive 17 foot U-Hauls up the mountain. I was scared driving the my mini-Nissan up the drive. No angle of picture could capture it. So take my word for it. IT IS STEEP and winding. I spent three nights with Chelsia, Daya, Divina and Shanna and really enjoyed. While Divina and Chelsea slept, Daya, Shanna, Henry and I laid in my bed eating chocolate covered dates stuffed with peanut butter drinking wine. A good time was had by all!